Health emergency declared over global resurgence of polio

A crippling disease that had almost been eradicated is on the move prompting the World Health Organization to declare the spread of polio an international public health emergency.

Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria pose the greatest risk of exporting the contagious virus to other countries, and should ensure that residents have been vaccinated before they travel, the Geneva-based WHO said in a statement Monday. In the past six months, it says, the virus has spread to Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Israel and Somalia.

The resurgence threatens to unravel a nearly three-decade effort to eradicate polio, which can lead to partial and sometimes fatal paralysis. WHO’s declaration that polio is now a “public health emergency of international concern” is extraordinary, only the second time the UN agency has given such a designation; the first was prompted by the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009.

While the risk to Canadians is low, the Public Health Agency of Canada advises people travelling to affected countries to ensure they’re vaccinated.

“This is yet another disease that we thought was gone away, and it’s back,” says Dr. Kumanan Wilson, at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, who specializes in health protection.

He says the biggest risk is to children who have not had their shots.

“If you are travelling with a child who is not vaccinated with polio, and you go to a region where this stuff is spreading, that child is at risk,” Wilson says. “I think that is the most important message.“

Polio has had a resurgence as military conflicts from Sudan to Pakistan disrupt vaccination campaigns, giving the virus a toehold. The number of cases reached a record low of 223 globally in 2012 and jumped to 417 last year, according to the WHO. There have been 74 cases this year, including 59 in Pakistan, during what is usually polio’s “low season,” the WHO said.

The spread of the disease, if unchecked, “could result in failure to eradicate globally one of the world’s most serious, vaccine-preventable diseases,” Dr. Bruce Aylward, a Canadian working as the WHO’s assistant director general for polio, emergencies and country collaboration, told reporters in Geneva.

Under the recommendations adopted by WHO director general Margaret Chan, Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria should declare public health emergencies and ensure travellers are vaccinated and provided with documentation proving their status.

Polio, short for poliomyelitis, can damage nerves and cause partial and sometimes fatal paralysis. Immunization can prevent infection, but there is no cure. Some people can carry the virus without displaying symptoms and can unwittingly infect hundreds of others.

An $11.8-billion eradication campaign backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International had reduced polio to three countries — Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria — until it started to spread in the last half year.

Canada was declared polio-free in 1994, and health officials recommend all Canadians be immunized to keep the virus at bay.

The vaccine is routinely given to infants across the country and Wilson says Canada’s polio vaccination rates are quite high. But he says there are some communities in which religious beliefs or fear of vaccines prevent parents from vaccinating their children.

Wilson says there is a risk that unimmunized children who travel to countries where polio is spreading could bring it home and spread the virus in their communities. “Often we find the unvaccinated communities tend to congregate together,” Wilson said, whose group recently launched an app that provides outbreak alerts, as well as vaccination schedules for children, adults and travellers.

The polio emergency comes at a time when another old microbial foe — measles — continues to spread in Western Canada. Thousands of Calgarians lined up over the weekend outside of drop-in immunization clinics after Alberta Health Services declared a measles outbreak.

It’s the latest outbreak in Western Canada in recent months, all of them linked to travellers who brought the measles virus to Canada, where it then spread to individuals who had haven’t been vaccinated. Wilson notes that measles is more contagious than polio.

The biggest outbreak of measles in British Columbia nearly 30 years saw more than 400 cases of measles in Fraser Valley religious communities after an individual picked up the virus in Europe.

Margaret's work covering science - and science controversies - has taken her to the Arctic to see the effects of global warming, to Cape Canaveral for space launches and into Ottawa's paper labyrinth ... read moreto reveal how the Canadian government has been muzzling scientists.View author's profile